


The Corner of First

by WeWalkADifferentPath



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Family, Five doesn't think about things in the order they happen in canon, Gen, Introspection, Is the author projecting her touch starvation issues onto her writing?, Minor Violence, Non-Linear Narrative, Number Five | The Boy Has Issues, Other, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Time Shenanigans, Touch-Starved, maybe so, sorry - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-11
Updated: 2020-06-29
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:15:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,476
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23588251
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WeWalkADifferentPath/pseuds/WeWalkADifferentPath
Summary: "Five has never been particularly sentimental.It occurs to him however, that perhaps, in the typical unfolding of human experiences, one might be expected to consider the first time that they touch another human being in almost a half of a century to be, well, for lack of a better description, abig fucking deal."--Snatches of time in the Hargreeves' Lives, as they learn again what it means to have bodies and be people and be together.Ch1 is Five-centric, Ch2 is Luther centric. The rest will be... whatever they are.
Relationships: Number Five | The Boy & Klaus Hargreeves, Number Five | The Boy & Luther Hargreeves, Number Five | The Boy & Vanya Hargreeves
Comments: 22
Kudos: 196





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> as it turns out, if you squint reeaaaal hard and pray to the gods of poor lighting, someone actually does hold the door open for Five when he's entering the diner. It doesn't look like Five actually touches them but he could've, so we're gonna say he does

It happens to Five for the first time when the woman springs into existence at the other end his scope, and tosses aside his carefully organized chaos for far less predictable, marginally more dangerous chaos.

The _Handler._ At first, he doesn’t believe his eyes. Or rather, doesn’t believe that what they’re showing him is real, useful information, something that actually _exists_. It isn’t the first time that he’s seen a person out here—a family member, a stranger, sometimes even Delores with a vague approximation of a human body and a soft smile just for him. But those visions never carry much weight; he’s forgotten, after all of these decades, the way that a human body moves, and the weight of it, and the heat of it, and the space that it occupies. 

Such a simple concept. 

But it’s enough for him to know that the woman in front of him is real. Sure, she has an airy, out-of-place quality-- her heels rest gently on the ashes as she walks—but she does sink in, just a little. She’s solid. Real. 

Real. 

Real enough that when she holds out her hand for him, her long, bony fingers poised in the air... well, Five remembers what to do. _(Shake it. Grasp it, then shake it. Firmly, authoritatively, and let them let go first, Number Five!)_

He remembers. 

But he doesn’t. 

He stares at her hand, warily, like a- a _feral creature,_ and hopes that he can pass off his rising nausea as some kind of survival precaution. Paranoia. Sue him. He’s cautious. 

That’s why they want him, isn’t it?

He’s cautious. Not crazy—or maybe, just the level of crazy that they needed him to be, he realizes later. Ripened from decades and decades of aloneness, when they could have taken him at any time, rescued him much earlier—but hypervigilant. 

Not crazy and not weak. He’s adaptable. He’ll learn again, what it means to be in a human body that exists around other human bodies. But still he ignores the Handler’s outstretched hand, wrinkles his lip, huffs out through his nose in the way that he remembers, and pushes down the feeling that stretches through his veins like rung fabric.

In a few weeks time, he’ll forget again. There will be no one to touch there, no outstretched hands in that place that exists in between time. No one to touch him when the only people that he sees are those on the other end of his gun, and their warmth as he imagines it never lasts very long. 

The Handler will try, of course she’ll try, but he won’t let her get further than close. 

\--

Five has never been particularly sentimental. 

It occurs to him however, that perhaps, in the typical unfolding of human experiences, one might be expected to consider the first time that they touch another human being in almost a half of a century to be, well, for lack of a better description, a _big fucking deal_. 

But as noted, Five has never been particularly sentimental, nor, in recent years, particular stable, so when he shoves his thumb into the carotid artery of the innocent man in front of him and squeezes until his face is doused in the man’s spittle, all he thinks is, _oh._

The man is warm, his skin surprisingly dry to the touch. But Five is focused on the squeezing and before long the body is cold, too cold, and Five realizes that he’d forgotten that part as well. 

He puts the man down gently and wipes his hands off on a cloth handkerchief and makes the phone calls that he needs to make to the people that he needs to make them to. It’s only later, when he’s in his motel room and letting the blood that he couldn’t avoid wash down the drain and into the sewers that he thinks: that was the first time.

Had he had more time before his next job—had he had a chance to lay, curled in the motel bedsheets and comforter, eyes squeezed shut, legs tucked up into his chest like a child, counting bullets between breaths because running out had been a rookie mistake and he’d been tired, he’d been _foolish_ —he might’ve wondered if perhaps the fact that it wasn’t an occasion for him was a concerning sign of the person was becoming. 

\--

“Is that blood?” Vanya asks, and Five loses his tenuous grasp on both eye contact and anger, sitting in front of his sister who still looks the same but doesn’t, in all of the ways that count. 

“It’s nothing,” he tells her. Instead of _I felt the life leaving his body_ and _that man didn’t want to hurt a child_ and _would you still want me in your home if you knew that I didn’t care?_

Or even, _they could still come after you_ (but I would kill them, kill them all, before they could touch you). 

It’s hard to breathe. Harder, still, when Vanya shows up with a bathroom cabinet first aid kit and he holds out his arm to be fixed. Her hand hovers a half a centimeter under his and the roaring fire engulfs Five’s veins again, more painful than the stitching of the wound. 

It’s a relief when she calls him crazy. A relief, maybe, when she doesn’t end up touching him. 

He was afraid, maybe, that she’d simply go right through. 

\--

When Five comes tumbling out of the sky and into a child’s body, it takes some... adjusting.

The physical movements work fine, sure. He reaches for the peanut butter jar and it ends up in his hand, and when he grips the lid and twists, it opens, just like it was designed to do. But he can’t help but feel that it _shouldn’t have._ These arms are too short, this body too lose. He drops his left shoulder a little out of habit and finds that it doesn’t ache. He grasps his fingers around the edge of his sandwich, and the muscles in his thumb don’t tug and twinge. If Five were anyone else he might’ve dropped it. 

But Five isn’t anyone else, and he doesn’t have time to let his stupid mathematical mistake distract him from his purpose.

Even if he’d rather tear out his own teeth than wear the uniform again. 

It’s not a surprise that no one in his family reaches out to hug him. It’s not a surprise that none of the ex Umbrella Academy children shed a tear for their poor, lost, returned little brother. He will not let himself be surprised by their appearances, or their heights; their sharpness; the fact that they actually move and _breathe_ (Five checks—their feet sink in). Once upon a time he’d dug those bodies a grave. 

His family doesn’t feel like his own yet. 

Strangers are easier to work with, in any case (strangers who look like his family, and bicker like his family, and who knew Ben, more of him than Five ever can). 

Five... Five looks like the brother that they remember. It could complicate matters, if he were to let it, and so he simply doesn’t. When Luther looms over him, when Allison questions him, Five runs on instinct to snap back. When they ask too much he walks away. 

He looks like the brother that they lost, but he isn’t him. 

He’s almost sorry for it.

\--

“Who gave you the right to lay your hands on my son?!”

Klaus’s fist hits his lip, and Five thinks, _oh._. 

It’s the first time in a long time that someone has gotten the better of him. Klaus doesn’t even look at him. No secret smile, no warning gesture, no fantasy of concern afterward, out on that curb. 

And Five thinks: _oh, maybe this body means less than I think it does._

His stomach hurts as he hitches a ride with a cab. He needs to see her.

\--

One of the side effects of having lived past the end of the world is forgetting just how many people exist. 

Not how many are alive—which is, in reality, still more than the day that he left, consistent with population growth—but how many are _around,_ at any given time, _being_ people. 

He parks the car at the diner, slams the door, and then he remembers, when the man holds the door open for him. 

Nausea rises in Five’s chest. The feral feeling that he thought he’d left behind curls his fists and clenches his jaw. The man, the stranger, doesn’t move, and Five doesn’t stop. 

Then—

The slightest brush. A hand on his wrist. He doesn’t know this body well enough to stop it from happening. 

Fire roars, nausea spills over, and the world spirals into the size of a shirtsleeve. 

A bell chimes out his entrance. Five trembles. 

The door closes behind him.

Five orders coffee. 

\--

“Are you okay?” Luther asks. His voice is soft, concerned, in a way that Five had wondered if he’d imagined. _Stranger_ mixes with dreams and dreams tangle with memories. “Can we help?”

Five knows, now. He grabs the hand before it reaches his shoulder. 

Luther, he knows, will not forgive him his sins. 

_Did you have a code?_

It’s a twisted self-punishment, later, when he confesses them anyways. 

\--

It is only reasonable, in Five’s line of work, to expect for death to come before one is ready for it.

Five had decided long ago that he would be the exception. 

He repeats this fact in his head on a loop, but finds that it doesn’t matter. Not when he’s staring at two guns pointing directly through his skull and he’s locked on the spot in the middle of a dark, overpriced department store. Delores looks like herself, not least of all because once again, she’s been severed in half. 

She’s still more whole than he is. He doesn’t deserve her. 

There are many firsts that Five is experiencing in this segment of his life. This happens to be the first time that Five truly believes that he is about to die. 

He doesn’t. 

He clutches Delores to his chest, breathing hard and wishing that he could hear her the way that he did before. That he could talk to her. Comfort her. But his throat, this child’s throat that he’s wearing, is frozen stiff, and Delores’ body doesn’t burn his skin. 

\--

“What are you talking about?” Klaus asks him, bare feet trailing up the side of the sofa. “You touched me first! At dad’s funeral, you swatted my arm away when I was attempting to valiantly protect you, as my tiniest sibling, from—“

“Klaus.”

Klaus glares at him halfheartedly. His hair, shorter than it was when Five fell out of the sky, is more in line now with the childhood body he once had. He’s been growing it out since his return from the war. Five doesn’t blame him.

It looks better longer, anyways. 

“Well, point being. It was over the clothes. But that counts, doesn’t it?” He wiggles his eyebrows. 

“I don’t—none of this matters,” Five lies, with conviction. Klaus is wrong, of course, doesn't know about the people he touched--killed-- before he even came back to this time. Only knows about the man at the diner, because that's all that Five told him. It feels somehow like a clear delineation, dropping out of that portal. An after to some vague before. But-- “It’s a stupid premise, to assume that time is linear and that the order in which—“

“Right, right.” Klaus cuts him off with an exaggerated wink and a dismissive wave of his hand. “Whatever you say, mein _tiniest_ bruder.” He turns to face Five, expression curling into sudden seriousness. “You know, sometimes things matter to us even when it doesn’t make sense for them to.” He shrugs. “We are still human, right?”

Five is relearning that a lot of things have weight; Four’s gaze has always been one of them.

“Yeah,” Five says. “Yeah, we’re human.”

“And _I_ popped your human-touch cherry!” Klaus trills, all seriousness dissipating just as quickly as it came. He bows low at the waist, and grins. “Satisfaction guaranteed at—hey! Don’t-!” 

Five lands on his bed in a halo of blue. 

The walls are still covered in scribbles—writing and symbols and equations that he couldn’t quite erase. Air comes in through the open window. It’s clean and a touch too cold. Delores sits in her chair, in her new blouse, watching him with a gentle attention 

His new comforter is fluffy and warm and almost too heavy, and Five curls into it greedily, legs pulled up to his chest. 

_Oh,_ he thinks. Then he closes his eyes and breathes. 


	2. Chapter 2

When Luther says yes to the moon, he realizes _how much_ he’s leaving behind, he just... doesn’t yet realize _what_ he’s leaving behind. 

He can’t make himself care. 

The last few years have been nothing but desperation—an itchiness, both under and over his skin. The moon is a fresh start. A chance to make a difference, and to have a vision again.

A chance to get out of this cold, empty house, with its creaking floorboards and its aching silence. 

If anyone were to ask Luther: _are you lonely?_ He would probably laugh. Of course he’s lonely. He’s alone. His siblings are gone, and they aren’t coming back. 

If anyone were to ask: _what if you went to_ them _instead?_ Then maybe he wouldn’t make this decision. Maybe he would choose something else. 

Then again, maybe not.

But the problem is, no one asks. 

So Luther goes to the moon. 

The other problem is, sometimes, when we walk away from something, then we can never ever come back.

And sometimes, when we do come back, we don’t come back as _us_. 

(Sometimes, we don’t notice, not until it’s far too late to fix all that we’ve broken). 

\--

It takes a spaceship, two airplane rides, and a cab to get Luther back to the Umbrella Academy. Thankfully he’s able to access private planes, so the only person that gets to look at him with that expression-- the one that says _ahh, I understand why you aren’t in the news anymore_ \-- is the pilot. 

The cab driver either doesn’t recognize him or doesn’t comment on it. 

Luther takes up nearly the whole back seat, which the driver doesn’t comment on either, though he does side-eye him through the rearview mirror and shuffle a little in his own seat, a response that Luther now understands as a reaction to his size. Like he’s checking the edges of his own body, just to be sure that Luther’s not contagious. 

It used to make Luther proud to be recognized as part of the Academy. He’s betraying something sacred every time that he hopes not to be recognized, or sinks a little further into his coat to avoid being seen. He’s betraying himself, and more importantly, the _something bigger_ of which all of them had once been a part. 

Being recognized used to include a lot less fear and pity. 

He steps inside of the expansive academy building and the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. The house feels too small every time that he enters it. Or else, he feels bigger than expects, and not only because of this new body. 

Pogo, who looks the same, says _Master Luther_ and reaches out for his hand. Luther offers it even as he wishes that he hadn’t. But Pogo doesn’t flinch. It’s only because Luther had prepared for this the whole cab ride over that his own face doesn’t betray even the slightest discomfort. 

Luther hasn’t touched another human being-- not properly-- in several long years. 

He realizes, with a sudden, sharp clarity, that he will begin to again. 

It’s not a feeling that he’s exactly comfortable with. 

\--

_Oh, you got big, Luther._

It almost hurts. But he had known that it was coming. What hurts more are the jabs that immediately follow. Protein shakes and low carbs. As if Luther chose this body. As if it’s a _joke._

He hadn’t expected to tell his siblings the truth, but he had hoped—

It doesn’t matter. 

Diego’s stare is intent on his face when he says that their father deserved to die alone, in that big, empty house, and Luther hears the subtext. 

He has always known how Diego sees him. 

Still. There’s a teeny, tiny part of him that wants to believe that Diego didn’t mean it that way. 

He can’t seem to find the words to ask. 

\--

When you have super strength, touching things is as much _restriction_ as it is action. 

It’s the first thing that Luther ever learns. As integral as the pull-in and release of breathing. Movement requires tension. Resistance. Without it, he’s untethered. There is no without it, and never has been. 

Luther is six and a half years old when his father tells him to _let go._

It takes him five tries to disengage his automatic restriction. To exhale without inhaling. 

The fifth time that he tries he throws the man so hard and so high that his head shatters the upstairs window and his shoulder breaks the window frame. 

_Good,_ his father says, and writes something down in his notebook. 

\--

_I made a wish and it came true, and now I can’t take it back._

Talking to Allison has always been easier in one way, harder in another. She asked him once, when they were children, why he hardly ever touches her. He’d gulped down on bloody fragments of window glass and told her that he wasn’t sure why. 

Words are harder than he expected. 

He’s never been very good with them-- not like Five, or Allison herself--- but the time spent alone had fragmented the part of his brain that expects his words to _land somewhere._

On the moon, they’d only ever disappeared. 

\--

_Isn’t it obvious, Klaus? He thinks that one of_ us _killed dad._

\--

When Diego’s dagger slices a tear through his coat-sleeve Luther realizes—truly, genuinely understands-- that being touched means something to him again.

It isn’t until later when Five grabs his wrist with frenzied vehemence to keep Luther from touching his shoulder, that Luther begins to understand that his touch means something to others, too, and not always what he intends it to mean. 

It takes about ten more repetitions for him to learn that lesson.

By then, he’s lost just about everything; and everything that he has left, he’s about to lose. 

(Watching the moon explode feels more cathartic than it ought to, though). 

\--

In the days that follow the end of the world, after they’ve returned from _preventing_ the end of the world, the house becomes.... quiet. Careful. 

No one walks on the squeaky floorboards, for fear of something collapsing. 

No one speaks too loudly. No one argues. They even sleep lightly, airily, as if they aren’t quite solid. The world is covered in a thick layer of soft grey dust and they all pretend not to see it, even as it clings to them and builds itself into their flesh. 

Luther has his own fears. When he inhales, he sees a broken window. When he exhales, he sees a broken earth. 

Both, it seems, equally his fault. 

He wakes up on the fourth night gasping for air. 

It’s chilly, nearly frigid—the window is open, because Luther runs hot, and anyway is intimately familiar with the fact that the most dangerous people in this world can’t be stopped by locks—so he slips on some socks before padding into the hallway. It’s a struggle to avoid checking Vanya’s room to make sure that she’s alive. That he hasn’t squeezed her to death—

\--that she hasn’t crumpled between his disgusting arms like a paper bag, screaming at him to stop, he’s _killing her,_ but he can’t hear her, because he can’t hear _anyone—_

He walks downstairs instead. Aims for the kitchen. 

He pauses when he sees Five, who’s back is toward him as he appears to struggle with the coffee maker. 

Luther stays frozen. Unsure and unwilling to interrupt. But it’s only a moment before Five says, dryly, “You can come in, you know.”

Luther clears his throat, wanting to give Five a chance to hear that it’s _him,_ to see if he rescinds the offer. But Five only scoffs under his breath and doesn’t turn around, so Luther steps into the kitchen. 

“What are you doing awake? It’s 4am.”

Five slams something into place on the machine with a loud clunk. It doesn’t sound like the piece was actually meant to fit wherever’s he’s put it. “Couldn’t sleep,” he says. 

Luther nods to himself. “That makes sense. Do you need--?”

This time Five turns around to scowl at him, but with the dark circles under his eyes and his jaw ticked in frustration it comes out as more of a grimace. He sighs. Gestures to the machine.

“Stupid thing was working when we left,” he says. Then, with a thoughtful head tilt, “if you call creating coffee-flavoured sewer water ‘working.’”

Luther steps toward the machine, mindful of moving around Five’s small frame. A week ago, he hadn’t noticed their height difference. He’d seen it, of course, but it hadn’t stopped him from getting in Five’s face. Now he’s a little more cautious. 

“Sewer coffee is at least caffeine,” Five continues. It’s uncharacteristic, Luther realizes, for him to be rambling like this. “Even if it’s disgusting. And I needed—I need the caffeine. Can you fix it?”

Luther looks at the pieces in his hands. “Yeah,” he says, truthfully. “It’s not broken too badly. Give me a minute.”

Five nods gratefully, moving back a step to lean against the island. “Thanks.”

“Don’t thank me until it’s fixed.”

Five blows air through his lips. “You’ll fix it. So why are _you_ awake?”

Luther’s stomach clenches. He bites back the words that he wants to say first, and then swallows again when he almost says the truth. Instead he says, as he slides a large white piece back into its rightful place with a click, “I just woke up, I guess.”

“It’s been four days since we got back,” Five says flatly, and Luther isn’t sure if it’s in condemnation or in understanding. He nods uncertainly.

“It’s strange having things be... normal,” Luther confesses. “Or, well, almost normal.”

 _Normal_ except that Ben is haunting Klaus and _always has been_ and is tangible half of the time now and _normal_ except Allison still can’t speak full sentences and _normal_ except that their sister was almost a world-destroyer, and it was almost Luther’s fault. 

It took him a while to realize that, but now he’s sure of it. Locking Vanya away was his biggest tactical mistake, possibly ever, and an even bigger mistake as a leader. The others know it, too. 

Vanya still hasn’t spoken to him. 

“You know, Luther,” Five says, conversationally, as the coffee maker whirs to life successfully and Luther reaches for the beans in the cupboard, “you can reach out to them, too.”

Luther freezes, hand in the air holding the beans out stiffly until Five makes a low noise in the back of his throat. He shakes his head, pouring the beans into the machine with a gentle clinking. 

“They’re scared of me,” he notes.

Five hums. “Do you understand why?”

He doesn’t. He understands why they’re _angry_ —he made a mistake, he screwed up, and he should be held accountable—but he doesn’t get their fear. He’s never been a threat to them.

Vanya’s screaming echoes in his mind, as if to counter that thought. But that was just a dream. 

“I would never hurt them,” Luther says, quietly. The coffee machine is drip-drip-dripping, now, and the smell is starting to fill up the small kitchen. “I wouldn’t hurt any of you.”

He turns to face Five, who’s regarding him shrewdly behind deep purple under-eye circles and a flop of greasy hair. He raises his mug to his chest, eyes flicking to the machine and back, stare half-vacant. “You already have, Luther.”

“Yeah, but—“ 

“But what? Why would they trust you when you’ve caused them so much hurt? When you’ve never been there when it mattered?”

 _I wanted to be there._ He doesn’t say that part. Action requires restriction. 

“What do I do?” he asks instead. He suddenly feels ugly, standing here in his t-shirt and sweats. He hadn’t intended to run into anyone down here. He crosses his arms over his chest, wishing that he had his coat. 

Five wrinkles his nose. “Our whole life,” he begins, slowly, as he walks up next to Luther—close enough to feel the heat off of him, close enough that Luther pulls back, away, out of his space—“our whole life our father taught you to get results at any cost.” He grabs the coffee jug, and pours himself a brimming cup. “If you wanted something, you took it. If you wanted someone dead, you killed them. If you wanted someone to _do_ something—“ here he pauses, and takes a swig of his coffee, “you just, moved them, physically, because you could. Do you even realize that people aren’t tools, Luther?”

Luther gulps. His throat feels constricted. “Do you?” he counters.

Five takes another sip of his coffee, which must be scalding his throat, but he doesn’t seem to mind. “No.”

“So then-?”

“I think,” Five says, eyes glinting with something hard and determined. The same look was in his eyes the day that he left and never came back, and it draws Luther’s stomach in with something thick and nostalgic and frightening. “I think it might be time for us to learn.”

\--

Step one of learning requires adopting a puppy, apparently. 

A French bulldog, specifically and for no clear reason.

Five names her Mister Pennycrumb. Luther scritches behind her ear, and wonders how this is supposed to help. 

When they bring her home, Klaus claps his hands and Ben grins and Allison rolls her eyes and even Diego smiles, just a little, and says _who knew you had a soft spot for animals, big guy_.

Vanya pads downstairs with soft footsteps and Luther nearly freezes in the doorway, holding the puppy to his chest and imagining the life squeezing out of it. 

But she doesn’t cower from him. Her face opens up as she sees the puppy, startled, and she laughs. 

She reaches out for it. Not to take it away from _him,_ but to gently stroke its nose. She backs up out of his space as quickly as she’d entered it, but Luther can’t find it in himself to be upset. 

Luther’s always been good at learning. 

And this is just step one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not listing this as a multi-chapter because, well, I already have one that I'm neglecting and I don't know if/when I'll post more buuuut feel free to subscribe anyways and when more gets added you'll get to know!
> 
> The world is crazy rn but I'm rooting for all of you, and sending you all love.

**Author's Note:**

> :) are y'all safe? are you well? hmu and I'm also on tumblr at @wewalkadifferentpath
> 
> I maaaay turn this into a multichapter with more of the other siblings' experiences/family bonding/Five actually Being Touched in Real Time/ etc etc so if that interests you, feel free to subscribe! for now I'm leaving it as 1/1 since I don't have more written
> 
> <3


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